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A REPORT BY
THE PARTNERSHIP FOR A NEW AMERICAN ECONOMY
& THE PARTNERSHIP FOR NEW YORK CITY
MAY 2012
THE PARTNERSHIP FOR A NEW AMERICAN ECONOMY
brings together more than 400 Republican, Democratic,
and Independent mayors and business leaders who
support immigration reforms that will help create jobs
for Americans today. The Partnership’s members include
mayors of more than 35 million people nationwide and
business leaders of companies that generate more than
$1.5 trillion and employ more than 4 million people
across all sectors of the economy, from Agriculture to
Aerospace, Hospitality to High Tech, and Media to
Manufacturing. Partnership members understand that
immigration is essential to maintaining the productive,
diverse, and flexible workforce that America needs to
ensure prosperity over the coming generations. Learn
more at: www.renewoureconomy.org
T H E PA R T N E R S H I P F O R N E W YO R K C I T Y
works to engage the business community in efforts to
advance the economy of New York City and maintain
the city’s position as the center of world commerce,
finance, and innovation. The Partnership’s investment
fund contributes directly to projects that create
jobs, improve economically distressed communities
and stimulate new business creation. Learn more at:
www.pfnyc.org
This report was funded in part by the Fundación Azteca America.
NOT COMING TO AMERICA:
Why the US is Falling Behind in the
Global Race for Talent
MAY 2012
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
America’s position as the global magnet for the world’s
most talented and hardest-working is in jeopardy.
For the past two centuries, immigrants coming to America in search of a better life for themselves
and their families have fueled the growth and expansion of the US economy. The United States
was built by immigrants, and continues to be built by immigrants. Today, more than 40 percent of
America’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or a child of an immigrant.
In recent years, however, US immigration laws have failed to keep pace with the country’s changing
economic needs. Artificially low limits on the number of visas and serious bureaucratic obstacles prevent employers from hiring the people they need – and drive entrepreneurs to other countries, who
are quick to welcome them. In fact, other nations have witnessed the importance of immigrants to
the American economy and are employing aggressive recruitment strategies to attract the key highand low-skilled workers their economies need to compete and grow. In the 21st century global
economy, the stakes in the global talent rush are only increasing, and our loss has been the rest of
the world’s gain.
This report sets out to demonstrate what America must do to win the global race for the skills we
need. It compares America’s immigration policies with those of other nations – and finds our policies
irrational and undirected, in sharp contrast with the targeted, strategic approaches seen elsewhere.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | 1
The US faces the following economic realities if it does not reform its immigration laws to keep up
with its competitors:
SHORTAGE OF WORKERS IN INNOVATION INDUSTRIES: Jobs in science, technology, engineering,
and math (“STEM” fields) are increasing three times faster than jobs in the rest of the economy, but
American students are not entering these innovative fields in sufficient numbers. As a result, by
2018, we face a projected shortfall of 230,000 qualified advanced-degree STEM workers.
SHORTAGE OF YOUNG WORKERS: The US population is aging, baby boomers are retiring en
masse, and the growth in the US labor force has slowed to historic lows of less than 1 percent. We
cannot continue to produce the GDP growth the nation has come to expect without dramatically
increasing productivity or welcoming more working age immigrants.
A STALLED ECONOMY: The US has faced years of stunted economic growth. History shows that
new businesses are the biggest drivers of job creation, yet the most recent US Census data show that
the number of business startups has hit a record low.
While the US is failing to shape its immigration policies to address these problems, other countries are
exploiting the failed American immigration system and implementing the following strategies:
Prioritizing economic over political goals by providing a high percentage of visas based on
economic reasons.
Competing to lure highly-educated labor by designing fast-track permanent visas for immigrants
with advanced degrees, especially those in STEM fields.
Tailoring visas to specific sectors and regions in the country by allowing local or regional governments to determine their immigration needs and implement programs accordingly.
Expediting visa processing and facilitating immigrant integration by investing in customer service,
streamlining applications and offering language classes to help new immigrants integrate.
Tapping the international student pipeline by creating visas specifically targeted to keep foreign
students already earning advanced degrees from their universities.
Competing for entrepreneurs and investors by establishing a range of new visas designed to attract
both entrepreneurs with business ideas and investors with assets.
Recruiting expatriate talent by persuading native-born scientists and business leaders working
overseas to return with offers of bonuses, free housing, tax incentives, and more.
Adapting to changing conditions by adjusting immigration priorities or establishing new visa
programs to recruit the needed skills for their economy.
2 | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
RECOMMENDATIONS
If we learn from these examples and implement smart immigration reforms, America will continue to
draw the workers it needs to compete and grow in the global economy. This report therefore sets out
the following six immigration reforms that the US should adopt today to continue to attract the most
talented, innovative, and necessary workers:
ONE.
Provide visas to the STEM graduates educated in American universities.
TWO.
Award more green cards based on economic needs.
THREE.
Create a visa program to allow foreign entrepreneurs to build their firms in the US.
FOUR.
Let American companies hire the highly educated workers they need.
FIVE.
Give seasonal and labor-intensive industries access to foreign workers when they cannot find
Americans to fill jobs.
SIX.
Allow local governments to recruit more immigrants to meet regional needs.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | 3
INTRODUCTION:
TIME TO RETHINK
Immigration has always been a powerful economic engine for the United States – keeping our
country younger, growing, and more innovative
than other advanced democracies, and refreshed
endlessly by new ideas and global connections.
With the populations and workforces of Japan,
Italy, and even China slated to shrink in the
Today, too often, our immigration policy is simply
self-defeating. After being trained at American
universities, top foreign-born graduates are told
to go home and compete against the US. The
New York Times recently highlighted on its front
page the growing trend in which ambitious American children of immigrants are returning to the
decades ahead, America’s continual rejuvenation
thanks to the skills and energies of foreign-born
talent remains a source of strength.
nations their parents left – places like China, India,
and Brazil – because they see greater opportunities abroad.1 Those countries are sweetening the
pot by making employment, investment, visa, and
tax incentives available to those who make the
move. Meanwhile, American service firms, fisheries, landscapers, and farmers cannot access the
legal workforce they need – even though studies
show that every farmworker generates three additional jobs.2 In the face of these self-inflicted
economic wounds, American policy drifts. The
price of this drift is high and growing.
America has long reaped benefits from immigration: the father rejoining his family after painful
years apart; the refugee fleeing oppression; the
field worker vital to American agriculture; the engineer at the core of America’s tech sector. Generations of such immigrants have filled critical jobs at
all levels of the economy, opened the small businesses that drive urban neighborhoods, spearheaded scientific breakthroughs, and launched
companies that became global market leaders.
The world’s brightest and hardest working people
have always wanted to come to America because
it has been the best place in the world to succeed.
Yet the basic policy framework governing immigration in America has remained unchanged for
nearly half a century. And while we have stood
in place, the world has changed. Competing nations now see immigration as an integral part of
their national economic strategy – a factor in their
prosperity as significant as education, infrastructure, taxation, and research and development. In
a global age when other nations are strategically
tapping immigrant talent to meet the needs of
their economies, we can no longer afford to delay
needed reforms to our own system.
To help spur consensus for urgently needed reform, this report highlights essential facts and
perspectives that merit greater attention in this
debate. First, the report reviews the value immigrants add to the American economy; the labor
force challenges we face that only immigration
can cure; and the importance of changing current policy in order to bolster American prosperity. Next, the report shows how other countries
increasingly take a strategic approach to immigration and the lessons we might learn from how
they are successfully adapting their own laws and
practices to 21st century challenges. Finally, the
report identifies six common sense steps policymakers can take to ensure the United States can
tap the immigrant skills that America’s diverse
markets, regions, and businesses need to flourish.
4 | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
IMMIGRATION AND THE ECONOMY:
THE SITUATION TODAY – AND
THE NEED TO CHANGE COURSE
The US remains the world’s premier magnet for
immigrants today. There are currently 42 million immigrants in the US – representing one
in seven residents, and one in six workers.3 In
2010 the US accounted for roughly 27 percent
of the world’s permanent immigration flows and
23 percent of temporary labor migration (with
Russia and Germany, numbers two and three, respectively, trailing far behind).4 The demand for
US visas dramatically exceeds the supply.5
Yet if foreign-born workers have always been
drawn to the US, our reliance on them to boost our
economy is less well understood. The critical link
between immigration and prosperity begins with
simple math. Over the long-term, an economy’s
size and growth depend on two things: (1) the
number of workers in the labor force, and (2) how
productive each worker is on average (in economists’ terms, their productivity). The problem the
US faces is that our native workforce is no longer
growing at a rate that can continue to produce the
GDP growth the nation has come to expect. (This
long-term dynamic is separate and distinct from
the shorter-term challenges our economy faced
and continues to face as it recovers from the recent
severe recession and its cycle of lower consumer
demand and persistent unemployment). Short
of a long-term surge in productivity per worker –
which few experts think likely – immigration is the
only way over time to augment the slower growth
of the native-born workforce and secure our nation’s economic vitality and our citizens’ quality of
life in the future.
A few facts put the challenge into perspective.
The growth in the US labor force has been slowing since 1970. While it used to grow by two
or three percent per year, today that rate is less
than one percent.6 Many people, discouraged
by job prospects in the aftermath of the Great
Recession, have dropped out of the labor force.
These and other forces have shrunk the share of
Americans participating in the workforce to the
lowest levels in decades.7 At the same time, the
American labor force is aging rapidly: By 2018
the median age of US workers is projected to be
22 percent higher than it was in 1978.8 In science and engineering fields, the median age of
workers rose by four years between 1993 and
2008 alone — from 37 to 41.9
But the economic value of immigration goes beyond merely “plugging the gap” in an aging and
slowly growing workforce. When it comes to
their impact on the US economy, immigrants consistently “punch above their weight.” Such new
Americans, choose, after all, to uproot their lives
and relocate, making them ambitious risk-takers
almost by definition. And while America’s ranking in terms of “start-up friendliness” has slipped
from 1st to 13th in recent years,10 this country
remains a very attractive place for immigrant entrepreneurs to launch businesses or commercialize ideas: Our intellectual property protections
are world class; our venture capital community
is among the world’s nimblest; and we have the
most vibrant consumer market to serve. This ease
of commercialization has influenced many top
IMMIGRATION AND THE ECONOMY | 5
research institutions to establish a presence on
American soil — no doubt a factor in the decision
by the the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology,
a premier high-tech institution, to become a part
of the new Cornell Applied Sciences campus in
New York City.
Immigrants disproportionately bring the inventiveness and entrepreneurial energy that supercharges innovation in an economy. Immigrants
account for 12 percent of all Americans, but 26
percent of America’s Nobel Prize recipients and
24 percent of its patent applicants.11 12 Their
presence in venture-capital backed companies
is immense as well, with nearly half of the top
50 venture-backed companies in the US counting at least one immigrant as a founder,13 and
three out of four claiming at least one core foreign-born team member such as CEO, CTO, or
VP of Engineering.14 One in four publicly-traded
venture-backed companies was founded by immigrants as well.15 In the critical fields of engineering and technology, immigrant-founded
companies produced $52 billion in sales and
employed 450,000 workers in 2006.16 And some
of the most innovative and successful companies in every era — from P&G in 1837, Pfizer in
1849, and US Steel in 1901, to Intel, Brightstar,
Ebay, and Google today — were started by immigrants.17
Why this disproportionate impact? One reason
immigrants contribute greatly to innovation is
because so many are trained in the STEM fields
of science, technology, engineering, and math —
subjects that are much less popular among native-born students. Such immigrants thus serve
as important complements to native-born workers at US firms, which otherwise would need to
seek such skills overseas to staff their research
and development efforts. And immigrants in
these roles create more jobs for Americans. A
recent report by the American Enterprise Insti-
tute and the Partnership for a New American
Economy found that every immigrant with an
advanced degree from a US university working in a STEM field creates 2.62 new American
jobs.18
This thirst for science and engineering talent is
growing, and US companies say these jobs are
among the hardest to fill,19 a difficulty that may
be explained in part by the dearth of native-born
students pursuing STEM degrees. In fact, nonSTEM students are now five times more prevalent than students majoring in STEM fields in
the US.20 And the future bodes no better: The
growth rate of US students majoring in STEM
fields is among the lowest of any academic category.21 Meanwhile, about 60 percent of all foreign graduate students in the United States in
2010 were enrolled in science and engineering
fields.22
Those trends do not bode well in terms of future
US labor needs. One study projects that the US
will have 2.8 million job openings in STEM by
2018, nearly 800,000 of which will require workers with master’s-degree level training or higher.
But based on current trends, there will be around
550,000 American-born graduates with the appropriate level of training to fill them.23 Given
the small share of native-born STEM graduates,
the slow growth of this group, and the years it
would take to increase this growth rate, US firms
must seek to fill the gap with foreign-born workers.
The role immigrants are currently playing in such
fields is impressive. The share of immigrants in science and engineering jobs in the U.S. more than
doubled after 1980 — from about 12 percent of
the relevant workforce then to almost 25 percent
by 2000.24 Immigrants with PhDs have an even
greater share of science and engineering jobs in
the US — nearly 40 percent of those categories of
jobs were held by foreign workers in 2000.25 One
6 | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
telling snapshot: The growth
rate of Indian and Chinese
workers in these roles is four to
five times the growth rate of native workers in these sectors.26
EXHIBIT 1:
BY 2018, THE US WILL FACE
A PROJECTED SHORTFALL
OF 223,800 STEM WORKERS
It is crucial to note, however,
that it is not just immigrants
with advanced degrees who
contribute to the American
economy. A remarkable number of new businesses across
the economy are started by
immigrants at all education
levels. These firms play critical roles in meeting market
needs, spurring growth, and
revitalizing communities and
cities. In New York City, for
example, one recent study
found that while immigrants
make up 36 percent of the
population, they account for
almost half of all small-business owners.27 Immigrants
make up 70 to 90 percent
of all laundry, taxi and
limousine, grocery, beauty
salon, and day care small
businesses.28 Immigrant entrepreneurs are also prominent in certain higher earning
small businesses, comprising
roughly 40 percent of the
city’s computer system design, architectural, engineering, and real estate firms.29
Lower-skilled immigrants —
who are frequently more
geographically mobile than
other workers — are more
responsive to market needs
SUPPLY:
By 2018, the
US will have
an estimated
555,200 advanced
degree holders 1
in STEM fields...
DEMAND:
But there will
be an estimated
779,000 job
openings requiring
STEM degrees. 2
2,000 STEM
DEGREE HOLDERS
2,000 UNFILLED
STEM POSITIONS
SOURCE:
1 Derived from Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, Department of Education, 2009.
2 Help Wanted: A Projection of Jobs and their Education Requirements, The Georgetown Center on
Education and the Workforce
EXHIBIT 2:
THE US LABOR FORCE IS
GROWING AT A SLOWER PACE
AND GETTING OLDER
US LABOR FORCE COMPOUND
ANNUAL GROWTH RATE, 1970 - 2010
3%
2.60%
hadn’t come and stayed for a
few months or a couple years
we would be way, way, way
behind where we are now.”30
2%
1.64%
1.26%
1%
0.77%
0
1970-80
1980-90
1990-2000
2000-10
US WORKFORCE MEDIAN AGE
Years
45
42.3*
41.2
38.8
40
35.9
34.8
35
30
1978
when they arise. After the
devastation of Hurricane Katrina, for example, observers
agreed that immigrants in the
construction industry were
essential to the Gulf Coast’s
rapid rebuilding.
“I don’t
know where we would have
been in Mississippi after Katrina if it hadn’t been for the
Spanish speakers that came
in to help rebuild,” said thenMississippi Governor Haley
Barbour, adding: “…If they
1988
1998
SOURCE:
US Bureau of Labor Statistics
2008
2018
*PROJECTED
In Alabama, one of the most
restrictive immigrant enforcement laws in the nation appeared to hurt reconstruction
efforts after devastating tornados in 2011. Jimmy Latham,
a Tuscaloosa contractor and
president of the state’s general contractor association,
told the Los Angeles Times
that the law was an obstacle
to rebuilding. “We’re seeing smaller crews and seeing
work taking longer to accomplish,” he said.31 The legislature apparently assumed that,
with state unemployment at
high levels, native Alabamians would take jobs that immigrants left behind. “That
has not been the case so far,”
Latham said. In contrast, after massive flooding caused
$30 billion in damage across
Queensland, the Australian government established an expedited process for employers
bringing in workers to rebuild. Australian Prime
Minister Julia Galliard explained, “Skilled labour
will be as important as funding for rebuilding.”32
These trends are poised to continue — meaning
the US will be increasingly dependent on immigrants at all education levels to reach its economic potential. While more than half of new jobs in
the next decade will require no more than a high
school education33 (and others note that a little
less than half of current positions require less than
four years of college),34 analysts predict there will
still be a mismatch between the requirements of
these jobs and the availability of American-born
workers to do them. We face a looming shortage
of educated workers as well. The McKinsey Global Institute, a division of the consulting firm, estimates US firms will face a shortfall of 1.5 million
college graduates by the year 2020.35 Yet even as
demand for such workers increases, we are losing
ground in terms of educational attainment; as one
indication, the US once ranked first in the world
in the percentage of people with post-secondary
education, but we are now at number 16.36
If these projections are accurate, we will fall
far short of meeting demand unless we accept
more immigrants who fit our labor needs across
the economic and skill spectrum. But America’s
legal immigration system is not designed to
bring in the workers we need for today’s economy. In contrast, as we explore below, other nations have enacted reforms to do exactly that.
Some like Singapore, have opened the doors to
less-educated workers needed to fuel growth
in certain industries. Most wealthy nations,
meanwhile, are actively seeking to attract talent
by giving preference to immigrants with higher
levels of education, work experience, or wealth.
Indeed, while other countries are making efforts
to boost their appeal to skilled immigrants, the
US is headed in the opposite direction: From
2001 to 2011, the share of employment or skillbased visas issued by the US fell by one quarter, from 17 percent to 13 percent.
Immigration policy need not be a zero-sum game.
The US has a proud history as a welcoming shore
for refugees and as a destination for families seeking a better life. We in no way compromise or undermine this identity by adopting an immigration
policy designed to admit and retain more people
who will create jobs that will help all Americans.
A recent study by the Brookings Institution and
the Partnership for a New American Economy
showed that, even within the same industry, immigrants and native-born workers tend to work
in different jobs. Moreover, the study found that
immigrants are represented in disproportionately
high numbers in many of the job sectors that are
expected to grow by the largest numbers over
the next decade.37 The message is clear: Immigrants make a critical, positive contribution to our
economy and will continue to do so.
American immigration policy now unintentionally undermines growth and prosperity. The
US leads the world in numbers of international
students,38 but has no program specifically designed to facilitate — or incentivize — permanent
residency, not even for highly talented and marketable graduates. As this report documents
below, other countries prize the best and the
brightest studying at their universities and go
to great lengths to keep them. Moreover, we
allocate a far lower percentage of permanent
residency visas based on employment needs
than other countries — approximately 7 percent,
compared with Canada’s 25 percent and Australia’s 42 percent.39 There is clearly a need for
more employment-based visas: Last year the US
issued just 65,000 employment-based green
cards — or close to two percent of the more than
three million US job-openings that went unfilled,
with many employers saying they could not find
IMMIGRATION AND THE ECONOMY | 9
EXHIBIT 3:
workers with the skills needed
to fill them.40 41
START-UPS DRIVE JOB
CREATION, BUT FEWER
NEW BUSINESSES ARE
LAUNCHING IN THE US
Between 1977 and 2005, start-ups were responsible for
ALL NET JOB GROWTH in the U.S. economy.
In their first year of existence, start-ups add an average of
3 MILLION JOBS PER YEAR.
S TA R T - U P R AT E:
Percent of business less than 1-year old
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
SOURCE:
The Importance of Startups in Job Creation and Job Destruction, Kauffman Foundation
Business Dynamic Statistcs, United States Census Bureau
Regardless of the other objectives America’s immigration policy may be achieving,
it is clear that the US is not
strategically recruiting the
talent needed to grow. This
may have mattered less in
an earlier era, when the US
economy was dominant and
unrivaled. But the world has
changed. While America was
once the first and only choice
for young dreamers with the
next big idea, ambitious entrepreneurs now look to places like China, India, Brazil, and
Singapore and see enormous
markets and opportunities;
receptive business climates;
and governments that are eager to recruit them. As a look
at other nations’ strategies reveals, our failure to recognize
the economic imperative of
immigration reform — in sharp
contrast with the many countries competing against us
that view immigration as a key
driver of economic growth —
is now a threat to our future
prosperity.
THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT:
LESSONS FROM OTHER NATIONS
A review of the immigration policies of other
countries reveals two main elements that distinguish their approach from our own. First, they
maintain a long-term view. As the examples
below suggest, nimble governments navigating complex challenges treat an intelligent,
long-term immigration framework as integral to
raising their economic and global standing and
enhancing the quality of life for all their citizens.
Second, our foresighted competitors make
strategic choices to meet their goals. While
programs abroad vary depending on a nation’s
political and historical context and level of
development, the common denominator is a
strategic approach to policy design that makes
the US immigration regime appear incoherent
by comparison. Through this strategic vision,
other countries – our economic competitors –
are rapidly gaining ground in the global economic
arena.
No one country holds the solution to America’s
broken immigration system or the prescription
that will right our course. But just as the best
American companies benchmark their opera-
tions against world-class firms overseas, so too
can the US government learn from examining
innovative approaches to immigration implemented by other countries. Even where specific
foreign practices may be unworkable or unwise
in the American context, they reveal the commitment other countries have made to a strategic approach to a critical public policy issue,
reflecting a clarity of purpose that the US would
be well-advised to adopt.
A look abroad suggests eight trends and lessons
worth bearing in mind as the US fashions its own
reforms:
1. COUNTRIES ARE PRIORITIZING
ECONOMIC NEEDS.
Many countries have identified the strong link
between immigration and economic success.
For many countries, such moves are a matter
of necessity – the domestic labor force is not
sufficient to fuel growth, and demographic
shifts (including aging populations and declining fertility rates) are creating labor shortages
THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT | 11
POLICY FOCUS:
THE US IS BEHIND OTHER COUNTRIES IN
THE PERCENTAGE OF UNDERGRADUATES
STUDYING ENGINEERING
SINGAPORE
33.9%
CHINA
31.2%
CHILE
13.7%
GERMANY
12.4%
ISRAEL
10.0%
NEW ZEALAND
7.3%
AUSTRALIA
7.0%
UNITED KINGDOM
UNITED STATES
6.1%
4.4%
SOURCE: Science and Engineering Indicators 2012, National Science Foundation
that must be addressed through more open
immigration policies.
Israel and Australia, for example, whose policies
were both traditionally defined by ethnic restrictions, have now chosen to accept laborers with a
broader set of backgrounds. In 1973, Australia
introduced a “point based” system designed to
evaluate prospective immigrants based on the
contributions they could make to the economy,
prioritizing skill over country of origin.42 Reforms
in Israel have led to temporary labor programs
that target less-educated, non-Jewish immigrants
to fill specific gaps in the labor force.43
Germany heavily favored ethnic Germans and
resisted immigration for the majority of its history. Up until 2001, non-German immigrants
could not gain citizenship, settle permanently,
or hold dual citizenship, but a rapidly shrinking
workforce and labor shortages made expanded
recruitment efforts imperative. Highly-educated
workers (such as scientists and top-level managers) are now given access to long-term residence
visas, and immigration is open to entrepreneurs.
Rapidly aging populations coupled with shrinking
workforces have likewise led Canada and Singapore to jettison traditional restrictions on outsiders in favor of a new dependence on them.44 To
encourage more immigration, Canada has taken
dramatic steps to ease its ability to accept skilled
12 | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
immigrants without substantial delays.
In 2008 Canadian immigration law
was changed to give the immigration
minister a special regulatory channel
called “Ministerial Instructions,” which
allows him or her to make adjustments
to adjudication policies without first
consulting Parliament.45 Minister Jason Kenney has used the new tool to
give immigration officials permission
to return hundreds of thousands of
low-priority immigration applications
unprocessed – allowing the officials
to focus instead on those submitted
by immigrants with skills in greatest
demand.46
In Singapore, policy changes in
the last 20 years have dramatically
changed the country’s once-closed
stance towards immigrants. In recent years, the immigrant population has been growing three times as
fast as the total population, helping
drive growth in GDP.47 But the influx
of low-wage foreign workers has also
been controversial. Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew
School of Public Policy at the National
University of Singapore, explains his
country’s experience:
To become a global city, Singapore has to attract the best
minds in the world. For them,
the government lays out red
carpet treatment to ensure their
quick integration into Singapore
society. At the same time, given
its small population, Singapore
also has to attract low wage labor
from the neighbouring countries
to provide construction workers,
COUNTRY FOCUS:
SINGAPORE
IMMIGRATION ACCELERATION. After a 40-year period
where there was little to no migration to the country, Singapore’s foreign population began growing again in the
1980s,1 and by the late 1990s the government had launched
a series of initiatives and special government committees
expressly designed to attract the “best and the brightest”
talent to the country.2 Only about 300,000 foreign-born
residents were living in Singapore in 1990;3 by 2010, that
number had reached more than 1.3 million, or 36% of Singapore’s total population.4
HIGH-SKILLED. Singapore brands itself as a “talent capital.”5
It typically gives skilled immigrants Employment Passes
allowing the migrant to work and ultimately apply for permanent residency.6 Their spouses can also pursue jobs with
government approval,7 a big difference from the US’s highskilled H1B visa.8 For some high-talent foreign workers,
subsidized housing is also available through a special government program.9 The government, however, has taken
some steps to lessen its dependence on foreign workers10
in response to a recent public backlash.11
ATTRACTING ENTREPRENEURS. The EntrePass program12
allows a foreign national with $50,000 in investor funds — as
well as a business plan approved by the government — to
stay in the country for an initial period of a year, with renewals available afterwards.13 For some promising new enterprises, the government provides funding — in one program,
matching S $4 to every S $1 privately raised.14
TWO-TIERED SYSTEM. The country treats high-skilled and lowskilled workers very differently, causing occasional tension and
protests.15 Lower-skilled workers, many of whom come from
places like Bangladesh and China for construction, domestichelp, and menial-labor jobs, face more restrictions than the highskilled foreigners.16 Such work-permit holders can’t become permanent residents, for instance, and also can be removed from
the country for marrying a Singaporean national without government permission.17 They also undergo compulsory health
exams: Female workers found to be pregnant are automatically expelled from the country.18
PERSONAL FOCUS:
POYAN RAJAMAND
Poyan Rajamand, an entrepreneur in Singapore, certainly
appreciates the steps his adopted country takes to welcome
high-skilled immigrants. A Swedish native, Rajamand attended Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business,
earning a degree there in 2008. But because of the drawbacks of the US visa system, he didn’t seriously consider remaining in America afterwards. “I had a feeling in
America, I’d be employed despite being an immigrant,”
Rajamand says, referring to the complications some US
employers face when hiring immigrants. He also worried it
would be difficult for his then-fiancée to work, given the restrictions on American’s high-skilled, H1B visa. “Why would
we settle for less when we could go elsewhere?” he asks.
So, Rajamand began looking instead at employment opportunities in Singapore and quickly noticed some major differences. “Unlike the US, no companies even seem to worry
about possible visa complications when interviewing you
for positions here,” Rajamand says. “There’s no real doubt
that that aspect of things will work out.” He found a job with
a large company as did his fiancée, and he came over using
the Employment Pass, a special visa for high-skilled immigrants. He says he and his now wife were consistently impressed by the ease of settling in Singapore. “We found the
whole visa system here to be extremely easy,” he says, “It’s
how you imagine the US once was: There’s a real energy
here around attracting the world’s best and brightest.”
In 2010, Rajamand also began taking advantage of yet another
one of the programs Singapore has created in an effort to make
the country into what government officials call a “talent capital.”
That year, he submitted a business plan to the government and
was approved for the EntrePass, a special visa that allows foreigners with $50,000 in outside funding and a promising new
business concept to enter — or remain — in Singapore as entrepreneurs. With a former Stanford classmate, Rajamand founded
Barghest Partners, a firm that invests in small companies and
helps them achieve a broader reach. Barghest has already made
a host of other investments, including starting a local energyefficiency company and a Sri-Lankan hospitality firm.
1 | NAME OF REPORT
housekeepers, street cleaners,
and so forth. Their immigration
is tightly controlled and regulated to ensure that they do not
become part of the permanent
population in what is already the
most densely populated country
in the world. These pragmatic
policies are win-win — they help
Singapore citizens even as they
provide employment to millions
in the region. Yet despite these
pragmatic and careful policies,
there has been a political backlash in Singapore against the
surge of foreign migrants. Even
in Singapore, the government
has learned that migration is a
sensitive political issue.48
Demographic pressures are even
changing the immigration conversation in Japan. Though Japan has
always prized ethnic homogeneity, acute labor shortages associated with Japan’s shrinking, aging
population — and the rising cost of
social services for seniors — has led
to talk about more relaxed immigration standards and more supportive
foreign-worker programs.
2. WITHIN THIS OVERALL
FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF THE
ECONOMY, THE COMPETITION
TO LURE HIGHLY EDUCATED
LABOR IS INCREASING.
There is growing demand for top
talent in countries that were not
historically importers of highly educated labor. Both developed and
developing countries are draft-
POLICY FOCUS:
ing policies that favor these
types of immigrants.
OTHER COUNTRIES ARE
INCREASING THEIR FOCUS ON
ECONOMIC-BASED IMMIGRATION
Germany, for example, a country that previously favored bilateral agreements for temporary semi-skilled workers, has
developed new policies since
2000 to give highly educated
non-EU workers the opportunity for permanent residency.
The New York Times recently
profiled on page one Germany’s aggressive recruitment
of engineers from Spain and
other troubled EU economies
who cannot find attractive positions at home.49 Such moves
are directly tied to serious labor shortages in Germany in
IT, mathematics, natural sciences, and related fields, which
by one estimate are slated to
rise to six or seven million by
2025.50
Australia recently increased
the number of “skills stream”
permanent residency visas –
the visas available to workers
with skills critical to the economy – to about 125,000 (including immediate families).
By comparison, the US issues
140,000 employment-based
green cards (including families) despite having more than
fourteen times the population.
The move is part of a broader
set of reforms that Australia’s
immigration minister Chris
Bowen says will let the government “elect migrants like a
P E R C E N TA G E O F A L L P E R M A N E N T
R E S I D E N C Y V I S A S D E D I C AT E D TO
WORKERS AND THEIR DEPENDENTS
80
67%
60
40
67%
60%
55%
37%
0
18%
18%
20
AUSTRALIA
1991
CANADA
2001
17%
13%
UNITED STATES
2011
SOURCE:
Australia: Department of Immigration and Citizenship
Canada: Citizenship and Immigration of Canada (2010 data most recent available)
United States: Department of Homeland Security
POLICY FOCUS:
CANADA’S REGIONAL
IMMIGRATION STRATEGY
Through the Provincial Nominee Program,
Canada’s provinces or territories can sponsor
immigrants for permanent residency who will be
most beneficial to the local economy. In some
areas, like Ontario, entrepreneurs and investors
are in demand, while less populated provinces
welcome individuals with ties to the region and a
strong desire to move there. The national government sets and changes the number of visas available to a given province after consulting with local
authorities on needs. Here are some examples of
the immigrants provinces are currently recruiting:
BRITISH COLUMBIA
Natural Science PhDs • Nurses • Industrial Butchers
7%
Food and Drink Testers • Tour Guides
7%
ALBERTA
Tradespeople • Heavy Equipment Operators • Hotel Room Attendants
Bakery Production Workers • Food and Beverage Equipment Cleaners
SASKATCHEWAN
Long-Haul Truck Drivers • Family Members • Food Counter Attendants
Doctors • Recent Masters/PhD Graduates
business manages its workforce.” As Bowen put
it, that means “selecting the best candidates, altering the skill-composition of its workforce, and
speeding up or slowing down recruitment as circumstances change” — a far cry from the current,
inflexible employment-based immigration system in the US.51
and senior managers (discussed in more detail
below).52 Foreign STEM graduates of top US
university programs are in highest demand. Ireland initially kept its doors closed to non-EU immigrants, but it has begun to provide permanent
visas for highly educated immigrants applying for
jobs in occupations with documented shortages.
China and India, meanwhile, have rising numbers
of return migrants – with China offering especially
bold and generous incentives to recruit scientists
3. POLICIES ARE BEING TAILORED TO
THE NEEDS OF DIFFERENT SECTORS
AND REGIONS WITHIN NATIONS.
16 | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
YUKON
Tradespeople’s Assistants • Security Guards • Sales Clerks
Child and Homecare Workers • Gas Drilling Operators
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Business Services • Consultants • Office Clerks • Kitchen Helpers • Cashiers • Miners
QUEBEC
Quebec has its own skilled-worker immigration system, and does not
participate in the Provincial Nominee Program.
NEW BRUNSWICK
Entrepreneurs • High-Skill Workers with Family Ties
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR
Entrepreneurs • Recent University Graduates
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
Entrepreneurs • Customer Service Representatives
PEI Business Investors • People with PEI Business Ties
NOVA SCOTIA
Recent University Graduates • Community-Based Entrepreneurs
Farm Managers • People with Family Business Ties
ONTARIO
Major Investors • Recent College Graduates • Masters/PhD Graduates
MANITOBA
Young Farmers • Workers with Family Ties • Agricultural Investors
Several countries have implemented strategies
to empower regions and states to develop their
own immigration policies to meet their specific
labor and demographic needs. In some countries, the national immigration system is bimodal
– supporting both permanent migration of more
highly educated labor and temporary programs
for workers with less education.
Canada and Australia have both implemented
policies that reflect differentiated regional needs.
Canada’s Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), for
example, gives provincial governments the ability to issue visas to laborers who fill local shortages, and Australia enacted a similar program in
1996. The PNP is designed to allow participating Canadian provinces to determine their immigration needs, establish tailored programs,
and act quickly. Each province or territory signs
an agreement with the national immigration authority that allows them to directly nominate applicants who meet their specific requirements.
THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT | 17
COUNTRY FOCUS:
CANADA
SKILLED WORKERS AND PROFESSIONALS. In 1967,
Canada introduced the points-based system, the first
major program in the world that assessed immigrant applications with numerical scores of factors like education,
work experience, and age.1 Designed from the beginning to promote “recruitment based on long-term considerations of economic growth,” the system is weighted
toward educational achievement and acquired skills.2
FLEXIBILITY. In 2008, new Canadian immigration law
gave Immigration Minister Jason Kenney regulatory
authority to adjust the way immigration applications
are processed without first consulting Parliament.3 He
has used this authority to prioritize the visa applications of
those with needed skills, returning hundreds of thousands
of others unprocessed.4
REGIONAL STRATEGY. The Provincial Nominee Program
(PNP) allows provinces and territories to recruit prospective immigrants whose skills and occupations meet their
economic priorities. Ontario offers visas for investors and
entrepreneurs and Alberta for construction workers, while
sparsely populated Manitoba welcomes family members
who can work. As a result of the PNP, migration to Manitoba has increased 250 percent, and in 12 months, formerlydecaying Winnipeg attracted as many immigrants as it had
in the five years before the program started.5
RETAINING STUDENTS. Graduates of Canadian colleges
and universities can receive a work permit for up to three
years – even without a job offer.6 Recently, Canada began
allowing up to 1,000 students who have completed two
years of a PhD in a STEM field to become permanent residents
while still enrolled in school. In contrast, the US has no program for granting permanent residency to current students.
REVAMPED ENTREPRENEUR VISA. The Canadian government recently announced the development, in consultation
with industry and immigrant groups, of a visa program
for start-ups Germany, which will require a viable business
plan but no minimum investment from applicants.7
The PNP opens the door to immigrants who may not have qualified
under the federal point system, and
encourages international students to
stay in the province after graduation.
If an individual is in the US on an H1B
visa working in a field identified by
a province as a priority, they automatically qualify for nomination under the PNP. In some provinces, the
PNP also allows for extended family
– cousins, nieces and nephews – to
join Canadian permanent residents.
In addition to accounting for differences in needs and priorities across
the country, nations are also designing programs to address labor
shortages spanning the skill and
economic spectrums. New Zealand
– while developing new fast-tracked
programs to recruit investors and
entrepreneurs to settle – also has
a robust guest-worker program for
the country’s farmers. Introduced in
April 2007, the Recognised Seasonal
Employment scheme enables agricultural employers to recruit up to
8,000 workers a year from overseas if
they are unable to find the necessary
workers in New Zealand. Each year,
about three-quarters of the workers
come from Pacific Island nations and
are able to gain work experience and
remit money. The program has the
support of both New Zealand’s farmers and the workers’ home countries.53 To address needs in the longer-term, the UK, Canada, Ireland, and
Australia all have introduced “job
shortage” programs that favor immigrants applying for permanent visas
in industry-specific occupations fac-
ing the biggest labor gaps.54
4. COUNTRIES ARE MAKING
THEIR IMMIGRATION PROCESS
EASIER AND ESTABLISHING
PROGRAMS TO BETTER
INTEGRATE IMMIGRANTS
INTO SOCIETY.
Countries have introduced a variety
of reforms, streamlining visa-application systems; increased flexibility
to convert temporary visas to permanent ones; and tailored programs
and benefits to better integrate new
immigrants into the economy. Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong sees
Singapore’s efficiency as part of its
recruitment efforts: “While we work
to attract the brightest talent to our
shores, we also recognize the need
to facilitate their stay in Singapore.
This includes providing them with
identification cards …[that] will allow
them to travel in and out of Singapore with ease and convenience.”55
Since immigrants who become stuck
in immigration backlogs often leave,
many countries are looking to improve the efficiency of visa application procedures. Canada has made
strides to improve turnaround time
for visas and limit the number of unsuccessful applications by publishing clearer immigration guidelines.
And Canadian firms, abetted by their
government, are successfully poaching talent stuck in America’s dysfunctional system. “Currently on an H1B
Visa or otherwise working or studying in the United States?” says one
such Canadian web site notice. “You
PERSONAL FOCUS:
JIM CLOW
Jim Clow, the owner of JayCee Welding in Alberta,
Canada, says it’s likely his business wouldn’t even exist
without Canada’s Provincial Nominee Program and other immigration initiatives focused on filling critical labor
gaps. With extremely high-paying jobs available in the
oil sands in Northern Alberta, Clow says his firm – in the
rural, Southern part of the province – often faces major
challenges recruiting experienced journeyman welders
from inside the country: He’ll often spend Cd $6,000 in a
month advertising open positions to Canadian audiences
without receiving a single application. “We’d be triple the
size we are now,” Clow says of his roughly Cd $8 million
firm, “if manpower wasn’t such an issue.”
Fortunately for Clow, Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker
Program and Provincial Nominee Program have allowed
him to lessen some of those problems in recent years. Since
the start of 2008 Clow has brought over 20 skilled welders
from the Philippines, Poland, and Pakistan. Unlike before,
when he’d regularly turn down work, he’s been able to take
on ambitious projects—including a lucrative 2009 oil-services deal that involved building oil drills and shipping them
to America. “Those foreign workers really filled a void when
I needed them most.”
Alberta’s Provincial Nominee programs allows engineers
and high-skilled workers with full-time offers of employment
to be sponsored for permanent residency in the province.
The skilled tradesmen Clow hires can use it to rapidly transition to permanent residency after first gaining temporary
work experience in Alberta — a major perk that Clow says
motivates them. “Every immigrant I’ve brought over tells me
he wants to become a Canadian citizen — every single one,”
Clow says “They tell me it’s like being chosen for a lottery.”
He plans to recruit 20 more such workers in the next two
years, and grow his business to a Cd $30-million enterprise.
THE SITUATION TODAY | 1
PERSONAL FOCUS:
ANAND
NARAYANASWAMY
Anand Narayanaswamy has seen Germany’s attitudes towards immigrants change dramatically in the years since he
immigrated to the country in 1997. A native of Madras, India, Narayanaswamy initially immigrated to work as a textile
salesman. Just getting that visa, he says, was “very difficult,”
and his visa had to be renewed annually and was invalid if
he lost his job. “It was a very closed society back then, and
it was hard to break through,” Narayanaswamy says. One
older neighbor even asked if she could touch him; She’d
never before seen an Indian person.
But things began to change in Germany in the early 2000s.
Narayanaswamy, who’d earned an MBA back home, took a
job at the technology giant Infosys in 2001. There, he became
one of the first immigrants to take advantage of Germany’s
new “green card” system, which granted five-year work visas
to high-skilled tech workers, a group desperately needed due
to German labor shortages. Unlike the old cumbersome visa
process, this time his application was approved within 20 minutes. “It was a moment when I realized that Germany had been
completely revolutionized,” Narayanaswamy says. Referring to
the application time — and the opportunities it opened up for
him afterwards — he adds, “Just 20 minutes and a guy’s life had
changed incredibly, forever.”
And such changes came quickly. By 2004 Narayanaswamy
and his wife, Priya, had obtained permanent residency
through a fast-track residency program for the highestskilled workers. Today he’s a full German citizen working
as a sales executive at Dell Services, with two small children who consider themselves fully German, too. He sees
his situation as much more hassle free than what his family
members have faced in America, a country known for the
particularly long path Indian nationals must take to gain permanent residency. That wait, Narayanaswamy says, “makes
a real difference to people and their families.”
may be able to qualify for fast-track
Canadian immigration under one of
the Provincial Nomination Programs
(PNP) or under the Federal Skilled
Worker category of Canadian immigration.”56 Canadian Immigration
Minister Jason Kenney explains some
recent changes this way: “We’re embarking on a program of transformational change, to move from a slow,
rigid, and passive…supply-driven
immigration system to a fast, flexible,
and pro-active demand-driven immigration system.”57
Almost half of Australia’s long-stay
visa holders make the transition from
temporary to permanent resident,
and in 2012, the government announced changes to make that process even easier. The government is
implementing a new process for fasttracking permanent residency visas
for certain skilled temporary (“457”)
visa holders who have worked for
the same employer for two years and
now have an offer for permanent
employment.58 Immigration Minister Chris Bowen gave this rationale
for recognizing established employment in the transition to permanent
residency:59
Because around 4 in 5 migrants
have previously held a 457 visa,
that means they’ve lived in Australia, usually in the same job in
the same location. And we think
it makes no sense to put them
through a very onerous rigmarole in order to become permanent migrants. We will take the
fact that they’ve been doing the
job and doing it successfully, obviously the employer wants them
to stay, into account and reduce
the amount of [steps] that they
need to do to transition to be a
permanent migrant.60
This would sound alien to the highskilled immigrants in America on
H-1B temporary visas, many of whom
have worked for six years before
applying for permanent residency
and still face a multi-step application
process followed by a wait of up to
10 years.
Ireland has implemented an “undocumented workers scheme” that gives
workers who become undocumented
through their employers’ mistakes a
four-month period to find a job or
obtain an employment permit.61
In addition, in many countries, the
importance of language fluency,
local work experience, and other
qualifications has led governments
to create “absorption” programs designed to prepare immigrants to enter
the local workforce. For example,
Luxembourg, Germany, and Israel
have all identified the importance of
language fluency to immigrant workforce success, providing language
classes to all new immigrants.
Israel offers a variety of programs
to support the transition of new immigrants. Immigrants are eligible
for subsidies for local licensing and
training in many sectors, as well as
free language courses. For many
years Israel has also offered subsi-
COUNTRY FOCUS:
GERMANY
OPENING A CLOSED SYSTEM. After a long history of
maintaining an immigration system closed to all migrants
but those with German ancestry — including foreigners born
in the country — the government began offering citizenship
to longtime German residents in 2000.1 Millions of Turkish
nationals living in Germany became eligible for citizenship.
FOCUS ON LABOR. After decades of opposing policies to
increase labor migration, German leaders also announced
a special “green-card” program that created a fast-track for
20,000 non-European information technology specialists
to settle in the country temporarily.2 Four years later, the
country went one step further, passing the Immigration Act,
which allowed senior academic researchers, top-level
business managers, and other high-skilled workers to
become permanent residents almost immediately after
arriving in Germany.3
MIXED SUCCESS. In 2010, just a trickle of high-skilled foreign
workers — fewer than 700 people — applied for permanent
residency in Germany.4 And in the first 10 months of 2011
alone, the shortage of German-based workers specializing
in STEM grew by 73 percent, reaching 167,000.5 There are
also questions about whether the current population of
immigrants can properly assimilate: After decades of guestworker policies, the average level of educational attainment
of immigrants in Germany remains lower than almost all
other OECD countries.6 The immigrant unemployment rate
is nearly double that of native-born Germans.7
EXPEDITING IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION. The
German parliament recently passed a bill that would decrease
the bureaucratic hurdles faced by high-skilled workers
hoping to migrate to Germany, which experts say slows
down the recruitment of talented foreigners.8 9 A national
integration plan also aims to help more workers adjust
through language courses and employment counseling.10
“The position that qualified foreigners are welcome here
should be the rule, not the exception,” says former German
Defense Minister Peter Struck.11
PERSONAL FOCUS:
CLAUDIO CARNINO
Claudio Carnino was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug
early: Like many innovators before him, he dropped out of
college in his native Italy to found a start-up in 2008. Soon,
Carnino wanted to join the ranks of entrepreneurs in America, and in 2010, he made it to the final round interview for a
prestigious start-up incubator in Providence, Rhode Island.
But US immigration laws, which lack a visa dedicated to foreign entrepreneurs, made that path incredibly difficult. “The
incubator told us they’d like to invest in our company, but
there would always be this problem with US immigration,”
Carnino explains. Specifically, the incubator wouldn’t risk
investing in a company whose founders might be pushed
out later because they couldn’t secure permanent visas.
Carnino took that setback hard,especially because it felt like
no fault of his own. “It was totally disheartening,” he says.
Like many young, promising entrepreneurs, however,
Carnino was able to find a more welcoming environment
elsewhere. In 2011, his start-up, Challengein, a company that
makes customized cell phone games that can be used in
advertising campaigns, was one of 154 early-stage companies
chosen for Start-Up Chile, a program that gives teams with
promising start-up ideas $40,000 in equity-free seed capital,
free office space, and a visa to start their business on Chilean
soil. Instead of worrying about his immigration status, Carnino says he and his partner submitted a few items of paperwork, “and it was like the visa was just waiting for us.” Start-Up
Chile helped him with many aspects of his transition too —
like setting up local bank accounts and getting a cell phone.
“They treat us like superstars here,” he says.
And that treatment really mattered. Despite the fact that
Start-Up Chile only required Carnino to remain in the
country for six months, Carnino is still working there almost a year later. While in Chile, the 23-year-old has hired
workers and come across even more opportunities: He’s
now part of the Wayra Accelerator, a private incubator
funded by telecommunications giant Telefonica.
dies to immigrant scientists that allow them to continue earning wages
similar to what they received in their
home country.62 Currently, the government spends more than $27 million a year on such income supplements for both immigrant scientists
and Israelis returning from abroad,
a figure that amounts to more than
$31,000 per scientist per year.63
5. COUNTRIES ARE TAPPING
THEIR INTERNATIONAL
STUDENT PIPELINE TO
AUGMENT THEIR DOMESTIC
LABOR FORCE.
Recent policy changes in Canada
and Australia aim to boost access to
a large pool of skilled international
students and convert them to future
workers. The Skilled Graduate Temporary Visa program in Australia allows highly qualified international
students who studied in Australia
– but who fail to qualify through the
points system — to stay for 18 months
after graduation to acquire the skills,
and potentially the job sponsorship
that will allow them to raise their
score and pass the hurdle for a permanent, skilled visa.64 The Canadian
Experience Class program, which
started in 2008, gives additional
points to visa applicants who earned
their degrees in Canada. A new Canadian program even allows up to
1,000 international PhD students
who have successfully completed at
least two years of a STEM PhD to become permanent residents while still
enrolled in school – a sharp contrast
with the US system, which requires
students
seeking
employmentbased green cards to complete their
studies before beginning a lengthy
and expensive visa application process.65 Another Canadian initiative,
which began in 2008, allows any international student who graduates
from a Canadian college or university to automatically stay and work in
the country for up to three years after
graduation.
The US continues to invest heavily in
international student education only
to squander the investment. Roughly
40 percent of all international students in the US report that at least
part of their studies was financed
by grants and scholarships based in
the US.66 Yet, in contrast with several
other countries, we have no program
dedicated to making it easier for
graduates to qualify for permanent
residence in the US. Unlike Australia,
for example, whose 18 month postgraduate visa is designed to allow
prospective immigrants to build their
resumes and increase their point
total, the US requires international
graduates who want to stay here
to submit to the same onerous and
uncertain visa petition processes as
everyone else. More troubling still,
the US grants no official preference
or “credit” for immigration applicants
with an American university education.
In this environment, far too many
students give up on America and
pursue their professional opportunities elsewhere. As the President’s
Council on Jobs and Competitiveness recently pointed out, the US is
COUNTRY FOCUS:
CHILE
IMMIGRANTS AS JOB-CREATORS. Despite a history of
little immigration – for decades migrants comprised only
one or two percent of the total population1 – Chile has recently recognized the potential of immigration to supercharge its economic growth. President Sebastian Pinera
said in 2010 he hoped to create 100,000 new businesses
and 800,000 new Chilean jobs by 20142 by looking beyond
Chile’s border for talent to help rebuild the country’s “entrepreneurial and innovative culture.”3
HIGH-TECH FOCUS. IT companies that set up a base in
Chile are currently able to get $25,000 a year from the government to cover the costs of each local worker they hire;4
the government will also provide subsidies to recruit workers from other countries.5 “We were late to the industrial
revolution,” President Pinera has explained, “and we cannot
be, nor will we be, latecomers to the new revolution of the
information and knowledge society.”6
START-UP CHILE. Founded in 2010, the program provides
entrepreneurs willing to relocate to Chile $40,000 in equityfree seed funding, free office space, a one-year work visa,
and help getting established. Entrepreneurs can access
expedited channels to quickly get a taxpayer number, a
national ID card, and a local bank account.7 8
DRAWING INVESTMENT. Although Start-Up Chile requires
entrepreneurs to stay in the country only during a six-month
incubation period, more than 40 percent of the entrepreneurs involved in the initial phase of the program remained
in Chile in October 2011, more than a year after arriving.9
By that time, Chile’s program had resulted in more than 200
start-ups.10 And in recent years, Chile’s economy overall has
proved ripe for the type of investment that often leads to
job creation, company expansion, and economic growth: In
2011, Chile drew in more than $17.5 billion in foreign direct
investment, almost 36 percent higher than 2009 levels.11 12
PERSONAL FOCUS:
HAROLD AND
ETHEL GOLDMEIER
Harold and Ethel Goldmeier were able to take advantage
of some of the benefits that Israel offers to new migrants
before they even immigrated to the country earlier this year.
Shortly after the Goldmeiers, a semi-retired American couple with 10 Israel-based grandchildren, began considering
a move to the country in 2011, The Jewish Agency for Israel,
an immigrant support group partially funded by the government, enrolled the pair in a free Hebrew course near their
home in Chicago. Through The Jewish Agency and Nefesh
B’Nefesh, a similar nonprofit, the couple also got answers
to day-to-day questions like what it’s like to rent an Israeli
apartment or collect US Social Security there. And when
they decided to formally immigrate in February, Nefesh
B’Nefesh paid for the flight, gave them 2,500 shekel (more
than $650) upon arrival for expenses, and signed them up
for health insurance before they even left the airport. “They
made it an almost wrinkle-free process for us,” Harold says.
But that assistance, Harold says, “was just the beginning.”
The Israeli government offers a wide range of benefits to
ease the transition of the 20,000 migrants who enter the
country each year. Although levels can vary depending
on a person’s needs, for the Goldmeiers this has meant a
3,500 shekel monthly stipend (almost $900) to help them
during the early months, as well as an 80 percent property
tax break and a housing subsidy that begins next year. That
help has allowed them to spend eight hours per week taking free Hebrew courses at an ulpan language school – a
crucial part of their adjustment and ultimate integration.
“Israel extends a hand to immigrants,” Harold says, “You get
the sense the country really wants you to succeed.” And so
far, the Goldmeiers are doing just that. With the help of a
Nefesh B’Nefesh employment counselor, Harold was recently
offered a job teaching at a local business college. And
after years of being far apart, he now sees his grandchildren
every day.
effectively sending remarkable talent
— the very people who were trained
and want to stay in the US — back
to their home countries to compete
against us. “The US doesn’t train Chinese military and send them home,”
AOL founder Steve Case, who serves
on the Jobs Council, recently observed. “It shouldn’t train PhDs and
send them home.” New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg has for years
called this routine occurrence a form
of “economic suicide.”
6. COUNTRIES ARE COMPETING
MORE AGGRESSIVELY FOR
THE ENTREPRENEURS AND
INVESTORS WHO DRIVE
INNOVATION, JOB CREATION,
AND GROWTH.
Innovative programs are emerging
to incentivize new groups of highly
educated workers to leave their
home countries and start companies that attract capital and boost
domestic job creation. Chile, the
United Kingdom, and Canada have
all launched programs targeted at
entrepreneurs and investors. StartUp Chile, for example, offers immigrants $40,000 in equity-free
capital and a one-year visa to start
a company on Chilean soil. So far,
the program has drawn more than
1,600 applications from 70 countries, with applicants based in the
US leading the way. More than 200
foreign start-ups are now up and
running thanks to the program,
raising $8 million in seed funding
from firms in France, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and America.67
POLICY FOCUS:
COMPARED TO OTHER COUNTRIES, THE US ISSUES
A FAR LOWER PERCENTAGE OF PERMANENT VISAS
BASED ON ECONOMIC NEEDS
SOUTH KOREA
81%
SWITZERLAND
80%
SPAIN
79%
ITALY
65%
GERMANY
59%
UNITED KINGDOM
58%
AUSTRALIA
42%
FRANCE
34%
CANADA
UNITED STATES
25%
7%
All percentages represent permanent residency visas
issued to workers only, excluding dependents
Recent developments in the UK show the real
push many countries are making to attract the
entrepreneurial immigrants so helpful in job
creation. In 2008 the UK created a special entrepreneurship visa that allowed founders of
companies with £200,000 of investment (about
$320,000) to settle in the country for three years.
In 2011, however, the UK decided to compete
for such high-value immigrants by opening its
doors to the most promising, non-EU entrepreneurs still further. Today, the government allows some high-potential entrepreneurs funded by venture capital firms, angel investors, or
SOURCE: From Brawn to Brains: How Immigration
Works for America, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:
2010 Annual Report
seed groups to come into the country with just
£50,000 in funding (about $80,000). Start-up
founders who create 10 jobs within three years
— or generate £5 million in revenues (about $8
million) — are also put on a more rapid track to
gain permanent residency.
Such changes are having an impact. In the first
year under the revised rules, Paul Barrett, the
Economic Migration Policy Advisor for the UK’s
Immigration and Border Policy Directorate, says
applications for the country’s entrepreneurship
visa program more than doubled. At the same
THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT | 25
POLICY FOCUS:
THE START-UP VISAS AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE
While the American immigration system has no visa for foreign start-up entrepreneurs
– even those with US venture capital financing – other countries have crafted ambitious
new visa programs aimed directly at such promising job creators.
UK
Singapore
Ireland
New Zealand
Chile
Minimum
Investment
$80,000
$40,000
$95,000
Unspecified
None
Source of
Money
Money must be
entirely from
registered UK
start-up investors
No restrictions
Any combination of
applicant, registered
investors, business
loan or Irish State
Agency grant
Applicant
Chilean
government
pays $40,000
with no equity
Visa Covers
2 Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneur &
Immediate family
Entrepreneur &
Immediate family
Entrepreneur &
Immediate family
3 Entrepreneurs
Initial Visa
Period
3 Years
1-2 Years
2 Years
9 Months
1 Year
Renewal
Period
2 Years if:
• Created 2 jobs
1 Year if:
• Created 2 jobs
• $80,000 Spending
in 1 year
3 Years if:
• Start-up is
viable
• Applicant is not
a burden on the
state
27 months if:
• Capital has been
invested in New
Zealand
• “Taken reasonable
steps” to establish
business
N/A. Applicant
must only commit
to working in Chile
for 6 months
Permanent
Residency
After 5 years if:
• Created 2 jobs
• Business remains
viable
Unspecified.
Applicant must:
• Demonstrate
business viability
• Prove applicant is
not a burden on
the state
Can only apply for 5
year renewals if:
• Business remains
viable
• Applicant is not
a burden on the
state
After 2 years if:
• “Self-employed”
• Business is
“beneficial to
New Zealand”
N/A
2008
2012
2009
Or after 3 years if:
• Created 10 jobs
or generated
$7.9M revenue
Established
2011
Or as soon as:
• Invested $379,000
• Created 3 jobs
2010
time, the country also created
a way for potential entrepreneurs to visit the country to
explore starting a business:
Such immigrants can now get
special six-month prospective
entrepreneur visas. “We didn’t
want to get left behind,” Barrett said of the motivation behind recent initiatives “There’s
a lot of competition out there
now for global talent.” Like
many countries focused on
economic growth, high-talent
immigrants — including entrepreneurs and investors — are
deemed critical to the country’s future success. As Barrett
explains it, “Attracting highskilled immigrants, investors
and entrepreneurs — those who
will truly grow our economy —
that’s where the thrust of our
recent policies have been.”
By contrast, the US is rapidly
falling behind in the effort to
accommodate such valuable
migrants. The country currently lacks a dedicated entrepreneur visa, and various
efforts to create one have
consistently failed to pass
Congress. Twenty years ago,
the US enacted the EB-5 program — which grants a maximum of 10,000 visas annually to investors who put up
$500,000 (for projects in
high-unemployment areas)
to $1 million of their own
money in capital, and create
or preserve at least 10 jobs.
COUNTRY FOCUS:
NEW ZEALAND
SKILLED MIGRANT VISA. New Zealand uses a pointsbased system designed to grant permanent residency to
applicants with the skills, qualifications, and experience the
country needs.1 As Immigration Minister Nathan Guy explains: “New Zealand is competing in a global market to attract good quality people.”2
TEMPORARY VISAS. Immigrants in professions on the
country’s skills shortage list can obtain a 30-month Work to
Residence visa, available for individuals with credible job offers or exceptional talent in the sports or arts.3 Immigrants with
this visa can apply for permanent residency after two years.4
ATTRACTING ENTREPRENEUR & INVESTORS. For New
Zealand’s entrepreneur visa there are no specific capital or
job-creation criteria, and after two years of self-employment
“beneficial to New Zealand,” entrepreneurs can apply for
permanent residency. Some entrepreneurs can apply
sooner if they invest NZ $500,000 ($379,000) in their
business and create three jobs. The country’s investor visa
also has two tracks: An investment of NZ $1.5 million ($1.1
million) can lead to permanent residency in four years if age,
wealth, and language requirements are met; an investment
of NZ $10 million ($7.6 million) can lead to residence in three
years with almost no other requirements.5
GUEST WORKER PROGRAM. The Recognised Seasonal
Employment program enables employers in agriculture to
recruit up to 8,000 workers annually for jobs they can’t
fill locally. It specifically targets workers from the Pacific
Islands, a region where New Zealand has long-held economic
ties and is committed to promoting economic development and stability.6
EXPEDITED PROCESSING. As part of a NZ $75 million ($57
million) investment to upgrade its visa-processing technology,
New Zealand has aggressively sought to reduce student
visa processing times. In April 2010, 64% of student visas
were processed in one month; by April 2012 that figure had
reached 92%. Batch processing of applications from trusted
schools now allows almost half of student visa applications
to be processed within 48 hours.7
PERSONAL FOCUS:
ZHANG YUANBO
Dr. Zhang Yuanbo, a physics professor in Shanghai, once
had a promising career ahead of him in the United States.
Zhang, who is Chinese, began a graduate program in
physics at Columbia University in 2000, eventually earning
his PhD in 2006 — as well as accolades for his groundbreaking work with the ultrathin carbon material graphene. He
then began doing post-doctoral research work at University
of California- Berkeley and IBM.
In 2008, however, he faced some major headaches. That
year, he went home to apply for a new J-1 visa to return to
Berkeley and was stuck in China for several months because
the US government selected his application for additional
administrative review, a common background check faced
by many foreign scientists. “The biggest frustration for me,”
Zhang says of his time in America, “was always the US visa
process.” While stuck at home in 2008, however, he learned
about a professorial job at Shanghai’s Fudan University
that offered considerable benefits. He ultimately wound up
passing up an academic position at the University of Virginia to take the Fudan job, and began teaching there in 2011.
Zhang’s story is not uncommon. Through its ambitious national talent development plan, China is actively recruiting
highly-qualified Chinese nationals living abroad to return
home, offering them substantial financial rewards and
prestigious titles. In Zhang’s case, this meant three million
Yuan ($475,000) in supplemental government funding for
his lab at Fudan University, as well as housing compensation
and a coveted, local residency permit. The university also
offered an academic job to Zhang’s similarly-educated
spouse, and a generous salary package for both of them.
That offer was a lot to pass up for someone who would’ve
faced a long road to obtain permanent residency in America,
thanks to the country’s current backlog of applications from
China. “The entire process takes too long,” Zhang explains,
“If the US simplified things, it would be a big motivation for
students to remain in America.”
In the 20 years since the program’s
inception, EB-5 has been credited
with attracting $1.5 billion in investment and creating or saving
30,000 positions.68 The program
has been consistently undersubscribed — with the number of visas
issued annually below half the cap
— although it has recently attracted
greater interest and participation,
despite its upcoming expiration
and need for reauthorization by the
end of the fiscal year.69
7. COUNTRIES ARE
ACTIVELY RECRUITING TOP
EXPATRIATE TALENT BACK TO
THEIR SHORES.
In recent years several countries that
have historically experienced brain
drains are making dramatic efforts to
lure back expatriate talent. China is
proving the most aggressive and ambitious in this regard. In fact, a large
portion of China’s talent strategy involves recruiting professionals who are
already contributing to the US economy: High-skilled Chinese nationals
who are living, working, or studying in
America. In 2011, there were almost
160,000 students from China studying
in American universities, more than
from any other country.70 At the same
time, a total of more than 1.8 million
Chinese nationals were living in the
United States, placing the country second only to Mexico in the number of
legal, permanent residents it sends
here each year.71 Foreign-born Chinese were also substantially more likely than native-born Americans to have
earned a bachelor’s or graduate level
degree — a high-skilled group
of particular interest to the Chinese government.72
In 2010, China launched the
National Medium and Long
Term Talent Development
Plan, a massive effort aimed
not only at fostering homegrown talent, but also at luring Chinese-born innovators
and promising entrepreneurs
back home. The plan specifically targets Chinese workers
in STEM fields who have patents to their name, as well as
prominent professors abroad
and recent PhD graduates
from STEM programs.73
China’s approach has a number of components. China’s
Thousand Talents Plan, for example, seeks to recruit 2,000
scientific elites and other experts who are now living overseas, including many students
who came to the US originally
to study. The government is
specifically targeting researchers with patents in promising areas like nanotechnology and cellular biology. By
2020, China also hopes to
have trained or recruited 100
“strategic entrepreneurs” who
can help the country create
firms that will rank among the
world’s top 500 companies.
China also plans to recruit as
many as 40,000 individuals
holding high-level managerial positions at well-known
POLICY FOCUS:
CHINA IS TAKING ACTION
TO ENCOURAGE SUCCESSFUL
EXPATRIATES TO RETURN HOME
China’s National Medium and Long Term Talent Development
Plan actively encourages successful Chinese-born innovators and
promising entrepreneurs living in other countries to return to
China by offering them a host of incentives, including:
SIGNING BONUSES. The government awards experienced professors and researchers who opt to come home a 1 million Yuan
bonus (the equivalent of $158,500) when they accept their
positions. Less experienced PhD graduates — those with fewer
than five years experience — are given 500,000 Yuan ($79,200).
FREE HOUSING. Returnees in both the academic and business
communities are often offered generous housing subsidies or
free housing in a city of their choice. In some cases, 600,000 Yuan
(almost $100,000) is provided to purchase furnishings as well.
TAX BREAKS. Returning entrepreneurs who locate their offices
in special municipal business districts are often automatically
exempt from business taxes — like China’s 25 percent tax on corporate revenue — for up to three years.
PRESTIGIOUS TITLES. In a society that places a high value on
academic achievement, many returnees are granted honorary,
scholarly titles — elevating them to the status of near-celebrities
among the local population. One such title comes with an 8
million Yuan ($1.3 million) award.
ACCESS TO EXCLUSIVE BUSINESS INCUBATORS. The country is
currently home to 60 Overseas Students Pioneer Parks that house
4,000 enterprises that generate $1.25 billion in revenues each
year.
RESIDENCY IN BEIJING AND OTHER CITIES. Residency in
major cities in China is tightly controlled, but foreign returnees
are often given permits that allow them to purchase a car or local
property, access health care benefits, or send their children to the
local schools.
COUNTRY FOCUS:
international companies or financial
institutions through its National Talent
Fostering Guidelines program.
EMPLOYMENT-FOCUSED STRATEGIES. From 2008 to 2012,
Australia reduced the number of permanent residency visas
from 315,000 to 185,000,1 but raised the number of visas for
skilled immigrants and their dependents to almost 126,000.2
By comparison, the US — with a population 14 times Australia’s
— issues just 140,000 employment-based green cards each
year to immigrants and their dependents.3
China’s gain appears to be America’s loss. A review of the profiles
of entrepreneurs, businesspeople,
and scholars featured on the site of
China’s Thousand Talents Program
shows that 55 percent came directly from positions in the US.74 With
China’s Young Thousand Talents
program, which targets professionals under the age of 40, the numbers
AUSTRALIA
SKILLED OCCUPATIONS LIST. Applicants for employmentbased visas must have occupations listed on one of the government’s “skilled occupation lists” – which are updated regularly
to reflect national and regional labor needs. The most recent
national list included biomedical engineers, skilled bricklayers,
special-needs teachers, and gastroenterologists.4
SKILLED GRADUATE TEMPORARY VISA. This program
allows highly qualified international students who do not
meet the criteria for a skilled visa to remain for 18 months
after graduation, during which time they can acquire the
skills and the job sponsorship they need to pass the points
hurdle for a permanent skilled visa.5
REGIONAL VISA PROGRAM. Australia’s Regional Settlement Strategy creates visas for immigrants willing to move to
parts of the country where their skills and occupations are in
particular demand. The program serves several priorities:
sustaining national population growth; encouraging immigrants to go places other than the traditional, over-populated,
gateway cities; and addressing regional problems such as
declining populations and labor shortages.6 The 2011-2012
budget allocated 16,000 permanent Australian visas, or
slightly less than 10 percent, to regional settlement.7
RESPONSIVE AND ADAPTABLE POLICIES. In 2010, the
government changed the points-based system to match
economic needs — including returning 20,000 backlogged
visas.8 9 This summer it will debut SkillSelect, which lets prospective immigrants pre-apply online, detailing education,
experience, English proficiency, and overall points score.
Applicants who best fit employment needs will then be
invited to apply formally for a visa, with the highest-scoring
applicants expected to be admitted first.10
are even more striking: In one class
of candidates, 77 percent came from
American soil.75 US visa policies only
accelerate this loss of talent back to
China. As discussed above, the foreign scientists, engineers, and other
innovators who train in American universities often face a tortuous path to
obtain the visas they would need to
settle permanently in America.
Israel has also been stepping up efforts to bring expatriate scientists
back home. Last December the
country held its first conference designed to connect PhD scientists
and engineers with willing employers and university contacts.76 And it
is estimated that since its creation in
July 2007, a special job placement
program run by the country’s National Ministry of Sciences has helped
about 200 scientists who earned
PhDs abroad — mostly in Canada and
the United States — secure high-level
university positions.
In the Fall of 2011, Israeli launched
its Centers for Research Excellence
(I-CORE) program,77 with the explicit
intention of enticing back some of
the nation’s most prominent scientists with high pay, cutting-edge research facilities, and a commitment
to fostering innovative collaborations across multiple disciplines.78
To start, I-CORE will have four centers, focused on alternative energy
sources, the molecular basis of
disease, cognitive science, and advanced computer science. Israel
expects over time to add to these
centers and bring back up to 2,400
Israeli scientists from labs in Europe
and the US.
8. COUNTRIES ARE MOVING
MORE QUICKLY TO ADAPT TO
CHANGING CONDITIONS.
While other countries generally have
a more strategic focus than the US,
they also view their policies as works
in progress. Programs that can be
easily modified are becoming more
popular.
For example, after the immigrant
population in Canada experienced
high rates of unemployment and
the workforce appeared overqualified, the country “reweighted” its
points system to favor candidates
with a job offer rather than just attractive skills. Canada has also developed occupation shortage lists
— a list updated twice annually with
occupations needed in the country — to ensure the nation brings in
immigrants working in fields with
demonstrated needs.
Canadian
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney
PERSONAL FOCUS:
AJMAL AWAN
Ajmal Awan, a Pakistan-native trained in engineering, has
taken his skills to a variety of countries. In 2000, he and his
wife, a doctor, moved to Dubai so he could work at a telecommunications firm. But their visa there was so temporary,
they would’ve had to leave within a month if Ajmal ever lost
his position. “It always felt more like a transitional thing,” Ajmal says of Dubai, “and I needed to think about my future
and my kids.”
So in 2006, he began applying to move elsewhere. Despite
the fact he was then working for an American firm in Dubai,
he quickly looked to Australia, a place where his MBA and
his wife’s advanced medical training would be helpful in
the points-based immigration test the country uses to assess potential immigrants. Because he was older than 35,
however, his migration agent advised him his points score
would be too low to easily immigrate. So to make himself
more attractive, Awan applied directly to Victoria, a state
in southern Australia, which had a regional need for engineers. Victoria agreed to sponsor him in September 2007,
and with that points boost, the Awan family was awarded
permanent residency in January 2008 — a month before
they even relocated to the country.
That generous policy — which contrasts sharply with the
temporary, high-skilled, H1B visa in the United States — offered a permanence that immediately resonated with Awan.
“When we arrived, I told my kids, ‘This is our home now,’” he
says. “It gave me peace of mind right from the beginning.”
Although he started at an entry-level position, within three
months, Awan was able to secure a job as a senior project
manager at one of Australia’s largest telecommunications
firms. Today his wife, Huma, has a private medical practice,
and they live in a five-bedroom house on a golf course. And
although their visas only required them to spend two years
in Victoria, they’ve remained in Melbourne, the state’s capital, for almost five years. “I would immigrate here again and
again,” Awan says. “It’s a place full of opportunity.”
SUMMARY OF COUNTRY IMMIGRATION POLICIES
1. Prioritize
economic
needs
2. Lure highly
educated
labor
3a. Focus
policies on
sectors
3b. Focus
policies on
regions
4a. Streamline
immigration
process
AUSTRALIA
P
P
P
P
P
CANADA
P
P
P
P
P
P
CHILE
CHINA
P
P
GERMANY
P
P
IRELAND
P
P
P
P
P
ISRAEL
P
SINGAPORE
P
P
P
UNITED KINGDOM
P
P
P
UNITED STATES
P
recently announced further steps to move towards an employer-driven model that reacts
quickly to the demands of the market. In response to growing shortages in the construction and natural-resources industries,79 Kenney outlined reforms that would create a New
Skilled Trades program to make it easier and
faster for employers to bring tradesmen to Canadian soil. The reforms also promote the use
of more complete methods when evaluating
a potential immigrant’s education and work
experience, and aim to improve the ability of
immigrants to get their professional licenses
quickly — so that immigrant nurses and engineers, for example, are able to take up positions promptly without languishing in a professional limbo.
Such flexibility and responsiveness also define
Australian immigration strategy. Unlike the US
system, which does not assess or prioritize
immigration applications based on a person’s
profession, prospective immigrants to Australia
hoping to qualify for a high-skilled immigration
32 | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
P
P
4b. Integrate
immigrants
into society
5. Tap
international
students
6a. Visa for
immigrant
investors
6b. Visa for
immigrant
entrepreneurs
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
7. Adapt to
changing
conditions
8. Recruit
expatriate
talent
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
visa must have occupations listed on one of the
government’s “skilled occupation lists” which
reflect the national and regional labor needs.
Australia’s rapidly-growing mining sector — and
4.9 percent unemployment rate — is also causing
some provinces to turn their recruitment energy
towards US shores.80 In May, the country’s Department of Immigration & Citizenship held a
recruitment session in Houston, Texas aimed at
professionals with skills in the resources, energy, and infrastructure sectors.81
To be sure, the experience of recent immigration
policy reforms overseas has hardly been a
record of unbroken success. Israel’s unusually
skilled pool of Jewish immigrants from around
the world, for example, faces high levels of underemployment; job shortages persist in some
of Germany’s high-end occupations; and Australia’s non-English speaking immigrants struggle to fully integrate into the economy. Still,
broadly speaking, the trends and directions
noted here could usefully inform the next set of
immigration reforms in the US.
*****
THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT | 33
CONCLUSION:
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
A MORE STRATEGIC US
IMMIGRATION POLICY
Considering the United States is now in an era
when immigrants are essential to jobs, growth,
and competitiveness — and the rest of the world
has become more strategic when it comes to
linking immigration policy and economic goals
— what should America do to keep pace? The US
needs a framework that values immigrants and
helps them succeed, and also ensures employers can fill vital jobs when they can’t find Americans to do the work.
A commonsense reform agenda should start
with these six ideas:
1. STOP SENDING TALENTED FOREIGN
STUDENTS WITH SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY DEGREES HOME.
Thousands of budding entrepreneurs and contributors to America’s innovation ecosystem are sent
packing every year despite wanting to build lives
and firms here. Any university graduate with an advanced degree in an essential field should automatically be eligible for a green card. It makes no sense
to send such talent overseas to compete with us.
2. AWARD MORE GREEN CARDS BASED
ON ECONOMIC NEEDS.
Today, only about 15 percent of US green cards
are awarded based on employment needs, and
half of those go to the spouses and children of
employees. This means about 7 percent of all
green cards go to individuals expected to benefit
the economy, one of the lowest rates of economic-based immigration in the world.82 By contrast,
Canada issues 25 percent of its visas to individuals (excluding dependents) for economic reasons, and by the same measure, Australia issues
42 percent.83 US employment-based green cards
are further limited by caps established for each
country. In other words, tiny Iceland would get
the same number of visas as teeming, engineerrich India. Even as we continue our legacy as a
place of refuge and reunion, we must open our
doors more widely to talented and hardworking
foreigners who can make critical contributions to
our growth and prosperity. That means allocating more green cards based on the needs of our
economy.
34 | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
3. CREATE A VISA FOR FOREIGN
ENTREPRENEURS TO BUILD THEIR
FIRMS IN THE US.
A foreign entrepreneur who is financed by US investors should be given a temporary visa to start
a company here. If successful in creating American jobs, the entrepreneur should be placed on
an accelerated path to permanent status.
4. LET AMERICAN COMPANIES HIRE
THE HIGHLY EDUCATED WORKERS
THEY NEED, WHERE THEY NEED THEM.
When firms cannot find the scientific talent they
need among native workers, they have two
options: Hire immigrants to fill these vital jobs
or establish facilities in countries with more
welcoming immigration policies. The choice
is clear —­the US must allow businesses to hire
the talent they need to expand and innovate in
America. Today, H1B visas for skilled temporary
foreign workers are capped at 65,000, a quota
that was frequently filled in a matter of days
during normal times and was filled mid-year
even in the recent, low-hiring recession. We
should scrap the limits on high-skill H1B visas
altogether.
5. GIVE SEASONAL AND LABOR-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES ACCESS TO FOREIGN
WORKERS WHEN THEY CANNOT FILL
THE JOBS WITH AMERICANS.
crackdowns on undocumented workers often
create severe labor shortages. That drives up
costs and leaves crops unable to be harvested.
At a time when food prices are rising in the midst
of a still-struggling economy, this is the last thing
American consumers need.
6. ALLOW LOCAL GOVERNMENTS TO
RECRUIT MORE IMMIGRANTS TO MEET
REGIONAL NEEDS.
Immigration can drive economic growth across
the US but not every place has the same needs.
Additional visas should be allocated to allow
local governments to recruit immigrants that
meet local needs — be it engineers for new R&D
facilities, agricultural workers for farms, or more
families to live on Main Street.
*****
A common sense agenda like this should draw
support from both political parties, and begin to
ensure we can attract immigrants with the skills and
entrepreneurial spirit our economy needs. The
policy underlying how US distributes permanent
visas is still based largely on a system designed
nearly 50 years ago. Since then, other countries
have repeatedly adjusted their systems to meet
their economic needs. As our competitors press
ahead with strategic policies suited to a global
century, how much longer can American afford to
drift with an immigration regime built in 1965?
Today, farmers must navigate three separate
federal agencies to hire frontline workers, and
THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT | 35
ENDNOTES
Kirk Semple, Many U.S. Immigrants’ Children
Seek American Dream Abroad, The New York
Times, April 15, 2012. Available here: http://
www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/us/more-uschildren-of-immigrants-are-leaving-us.html
1
Hearing to Review the Labor Needs of American Agriculture: Hearing Before H. Comm. On
Agriculture, 110th Cong. 12 (2007) (testimony
of James Holt, pres. and principal James S. Holt
& Co.).
2
Audrey Singer, Immigrant Workers in the U.S.
Labor Force, Brookings Institution, March 2012.
Available here: http://www.renewoureconomy.
org/sites/all/themes/pnae/img/Immigrant_
Workers_Brookings.pdf
3
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) International Migration
Outlook 2011. Available here: http://www.wiso.
uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/vwl/aussenhandel/
internationalewirtschaftsbeziehungen/Hauptstudium/Migration/WiSe2011_12/oecd_2011.pdf
4
See, eg, Peter Whoriskey, Skilled-Worker
Visa Demand Expected to Far Exceed Supply,
Washington Post, April 1, 2008. Available here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/31/AR2008033102581.
html
5
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Current Population Survey.
6
7
Id.
BLS, Labor Force Projections to 2018: Older
Workers Staying More Active, Nov. 2009, p.
50. Available here: http://www.bls.gov/opub/
mlr/2009/11/art3full.pdf
8
National Science Foundation, Science and
Engineering Indicators 2012, Science and
9
Engineering Labor Force. Available here: http://
www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c3/c3s4.htm#s4
International Finance Corp “Doing Business”
website. Available here: http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/unitedstates#starting-a-business
10
Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian, Ben Rissing, and Gary Gereffi, America’s New Immigrant
Entrepreneurs, Kauffman Foundation Report,
2007.
11
Jennifer Hunt and Marjolaine GauthierLoiselle, How Much Does Immigration Boost
Innovation? American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2010, pp. 31, 33.
12
Stuart Anderson, Immigrant Founders and
Key Personnel in America’s 50 Top VentureFunded Companies, National Foundation for
American Policy, NFAP Policy Brief, Dec. 2011.
13
14
Id.
15
Id.
Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian, Ben A.
Rissing and Gary Gereffi, America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Part I, Duke Science, Technology & Innovation Paper No. 23, Jan. 2007.
16
Reform Immigration for America
website,“What Companies Would Not Have
Started Without Immigrants?” Available here:
http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/
blog/what-companies-would-not-have-startedwithout-immigrants
17
Madeline Zavodny, Immigration and American Jobs, American Enterprise Institute and
the Partnership for a New American Economy,
Dec. 2011. Available here: http://www.renewoureconomy.org/sites/all/themes/pnae/img/
NAE_Im-AmerJobs.pdf
18
i | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
James Manyika, et al, An economy that works:
Job creation and America’s future, McKinsey
Global Institute, June 2011. Available here:
http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/MGI/
Research/Labor_Markets/An_economy_that_
works_for_US_job_creation
19
National Science Foundation, Science and
Engineering Indicators 2012, Higher Education
in Science and Engineering. Available here:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.
htm
20
21
Manyika, supra, p. 41.
National Science Foundation, Science and
Engineering Indicators 2012, Higher Education
in Science and Engineering. Available here:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2h.
htm
22
Help Wanted: A Projection of Jobs and their
Education Requirements, The Georgetown
Center on Education and the Workforce. Available here: http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/
gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/FullReport.pdf
Damage, AustralianPolitics.com., Jan. 27,
2011. Available here: http://australianpolitics.
com/2011/01/27/flood-levy-announced-bygillard.html
BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook . Available: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/About/Projections-Overview.htm#totaljobopenings
33
Harry J. Holzer and Robert I. Lerman , America’s Forgotten Middle-skill Jobs, The Workforce
Alliance, Nov. 2007. Available here: http://www.
urban.org/UploadedPdf/411633_forgottenjobs.
pdf
34
35
OECD, Education at a Glance 2011: OECD
Indicators, p. 60 Available here: http://www.
oecd.org/dataoecd/62/2/48630696.pdf
36
37
23
National Science Foundation, Asia’s Rising
Science and Technology Strength, August 2007.
24
25
Id.
26
Id.
Immigrant Small Businesses in New York City,
Fiscal Policy Institute, Oct. 3, 2011.
27
28
Id.
29
Id.
Daniel Griswold, Gov. Barbour Breaks with
GOP on Immigration, Cato@Liberty (Sep. 3,
2010, 12:43 PM). Available here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/gov-barbour-breaks-with-gopon-immigration/. Video available here: http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF9AkCFqbxU
30
Richard Fausset, Alabama’s Immigration
Law Prompts Alarm, Los Angeles Times, Oct 8,
2011. Available here: http://articles.latimes.
com/2011/oct/08/nation/la-na-alabama-immigration-20111009
31
32
Gillard Announces Levy To Pay For Flood
Manyika, supra.
Singer, supra.
OECD International Migration Outlook 2011,
supra, p. 64.
38
Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny, From
Brawn to Brains: How Immigration Works for
America, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas: 2010
Annual Report, p. 15. Available here: http://
www.dallasfed.org/assets/documents/fed/annual/2010/ar10b.pdf
39
US Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration Statistics 2010 Yearbook of
Immigration Statistics, Office of Immigration
Statistics, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, August 2011.
40
BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Available here: http://www.bls.gov/news.
release/pdf/jolts.pdf
41
Ayelet Shachar, Highly Skilled Immigrants and
Competitive Immigration Regimes, New York
University Law Review, Vol. 81 (2006). Available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.
cfm?abstract_id=883739
42
OECD International Migration Outlook 2011,
supra, p. 230.
43
Harper vows ‘major transformations’ to position Canada for growth, The Globe and Mail,
44
ENDNOTES | ii
Jan. 26, 2012. Available here: http://www.
theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpervows-major-transformations-to-position-canada-for-growth/article2315507/; Shamim Adam
and Kristine Aquino, Singapore’s Lee Says
Immigration Policy Benefited Citizens, Bloomberg, Apr. 21, 2012. Available here: http://www.
bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-21/singaporepremier-lee-says-influx-of-foreign-workers-hasbenefited-economy.html
Stephen Meurrens. Ministerial Instructions
will be Jason Kenney’s Greatest Legacy, Canadian Immigration Law Blog, April 28, 2012. Available here: http://www.smeurrens.com/2012/04/
ministerial-instructions-will-be-jason-kenneysgreatest-legacy/
45
OECD International Migration Outlook 2011,
supra, p. 270.
46
Singapore Statistics: Population Trends 2011.
Available here: http://www.singstat.gov.sg/
pubn/popn/population2011.pdf
47
Email interview with Kishore Mahbubani, May
4, 2012.
48
Suzanne Daley and Nicholas Kulish, Brain
Drain Feared as German Jobs Lure Southern
Europeans, The New York Times, April 28,
2012. Available here: http://www.nytimes.
com/2012/04/29/world/europe/germanylooks-to-southern-europe-to-fill-jobs.html
49
Germany to open doors for skilled workers
from non-EU countries, The Economic Times,
June 23, 2011. Available here: http://articles.
economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-06-23/
news/29694713_1_skilled-workers-specialistseu
50
Australian Migration Thinks Local, Embrace
Australia, May 12, 2011. Available here: http://
www.embraceaustralia.com/australian-migration-thinks-local-9475.htm
51
China: An Emerging Destination for Economic Migration, Migration Policy Institute. Available here: http://www.migrationinformation.
org/feature/display.cfm?ID=838
52
Email correspondence with Immigration Minister Nathan Guy, May 15, 2012.
53
See OECD International Migration Outlook
2011, supra.
54
More overseas Singaporeans returning, says
Manpower Minister Gan, Channel News Asia,
Jan. 12, 2010. Available here: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/
view/1030130/1/.html
55
CanadaVisa.com website. Available here:
http://www.canadavisa.com/strategic-recruitment-stream-h1b-visa.html
56
Kenney on transformational changes to immigration model, The Globe and Mail, April 10,
2012. Available here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/kenneyon-transformational-changes-to-immigrationmodel/article2397489
57
Department of Immigration and Citizenship,
Reforms to the Permanent Employer-Sponsored
Visa Work Program , March 2012. Available
here: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilledworkers/_pdf/perm-sponsored-reforms.pdf
58
Rebooting the American Dream, Immigration Policy Institute, Nov. 2011, p.7. Available
here: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/
default/files/docs/IPC_-_Rebooting_the_American_Dream_110811.pdf
59
Girish Sawlani, Australian government overhaul of visa scheme, ABC Radio Australia, March
9, 2012. Available here: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/onairhighlights/australian-government-overhaul-of-visascheme?autoplay=423328
60
OECD International Migration Outlook 2011,
supra, p. 288.
61
Haim Watzman, Israeli immigrant scientists protest threat to jobs, Nature, Sept. 15,
2009. Available here: http://www.nature.com/
news/2009/090915/full/news.2009.912.html
62
Email correspondence with Omri Ingber, May
14, 2012.
63
64
Department of Citizenship and Immigration
iii | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
website. Available here: http://www.immi.gov.
au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/485
Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Attracting and Retaining International PhD Students
the Focus of New Initiative [Press Release].
Available here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/
department/media/releases/2011/2011-11-02.
asp
65
Daniel Obst and Joanne Forster, Perceptions
of European Higher Education in Third Countries: Country Report USA, Institute of International Education. Available here: http://www.
iie.org/~/media/Files/Corporate/Publications/
International-Students-in-the-US.ashx
66
Vivek Wadhwa, Want More Startups? Learn
from Chile, Bloomberg Businessweek, April 11,
2012. Available here: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-11/want-more-startups-learn-from-chile
67
68
Id.
Nick Leiber, The EB-5 Program: Create American Jobs, Get a Green Card, Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug. 4, 2011. Available here: http://
www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-eb5program-create-american-jobs-get-a-greencard-08042011.html
69
Institute of International Education, Data from
the Open Doors Report 2011. Lead country
of origin chart available here: http://www.iie.
org/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors/
Data/International-Students/Leading-Places-ofOrigin/2009-11
70
Randall Monger and James Yankay, US Legal
Permanent Residents: 2011, Dept. of Homeland
Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. Available here: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/
statistics/publications/lpr_fr_2011.pdf
71
72
Id.
Thousand Talents Program Introduction,
Recruitment Program of Global Experts, CPC
Central Committee’s High Level Overseas
Personnel Recruitment Office, Oct 1, 2011.
Available here: http://www.1000plan.org/qrjh/
73
section/2?m=rcrd
Website for China’s Thousand Talents Program . Available here: http://www.1000plan.
org
74
List of Candidates for Thousand Young
Talents Program . Available here: : http://www.
shidaedu.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&ti
d=24485&highlight=%C7%A7%C8%CB%BC%
C6%BB%AE
75
Elad Benari and Yoni Kem, Fighting the “Brain
Drain, Israel Nation News, Dec. 27, 2011. Available here: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/
News/News.aspx/151120#.TwheD9SNjjs
76
Israeli Centers for Research Excellence webpage. Available here: http://www.i-core.org.il/
CHE-PBC2
77
David Rosenberg, Israel: State Acts to Plug
Brain Drain, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 5, 2012. Available here: http://www.jpost.com/Sci-Tech/Article.aspx?id=252301
78
See: Citizenship and Immigration Dept. News
Release, April 10, 2012. VisaFirst.com. Available
here: http://www.visafirst.com/en/news_and_
updates.asp?page=news&item_id=1550http://
www.visafirst.com/en/news_and_updates.
asp?page=news&item_id=1550
79
James Glynn, Australia’s Unemployment Rate
Falls to 4.9%, Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2012.
Available here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB
1000142405270230407030457739488161824
8676.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
80
Australian Government Department of Immigration & Citizenship, “Skilled Australia Needs
Events: Houston, Texas 19-20 May 2012.” Available here: http://www.immi.gov.au/skillevents;
Email with Cecilia Evans, May 10, 2012.
81
82
Orrenius and Zavodny, supra.
Citizen and Immigration Canada: Preliminary
tables, Permanent and temporary residents,
2011; Canada, Permanent residents by category, 2007‑2011.
83
ENDNOTES | iv
COUNTRY FOCUS: SINGAPORE
Brenda S.A. Yeoh and Weiqiang Lin, Country
Profiles: Rapid Growth in Singapore’s Immigrant
Population Brings Policy Challenge, Migration
Information Source, Migration Policy Institute,
April 2012. Available here: http://www.migrationinformation.org/feature/display.cfm?ID=887
1
Rivkin website, Employment Pass Eligibility Certificate (EPEC) – Singapore License to
Job Hunt website. Available here: http://www.
rikvin.com/blog/singapore-employment-passeligibility-certificate-epec-singapore-licence-tojob-hunt
2
3
Id.
Singapore Population Tops Five Million, 36 Pct
Foreigners, AFP, Aug. 31, 2010. Available here:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hVOOgQkOi6-Fbx-p15efD26n8zTg
4
5
Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Start-Ups
(YES! Start-Ups), SPRING Singapore website.
Available here: http://www.spring.gov.sg/Entrepreneurship/FS/FS/Pages/young-entrepreneurs-scheme-start-ups.aspx
14
Shibani Mahtani, Migrant Worker Sit-In Makes
Waves in Singapore, The Wall Street Journal
Southeast Asia, Feb. 7, 2012. Available here:
http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2012/02/07/
migrant-worker-sit-in-makes-waves-in-singapore
15
16
Migration Policy Institute, supra.
17
Id.
18
Id.
Migration Policy Institute, supra.
Guide Me Singapore, Singapore Permanent
Residency Schemes website. Available here:
http://www.guidemesingapore.com/relocation/
pr/singapore-permanent-residence-schemes.
6
7
Id.
8
9 FAM § 41.53 18.3.
Linda Low, The Political Economy of Migrant
Worker Policy in Singapore, Asia Pacific Business
Review 8 (4): 95–118 (June 2002).
9
Singapore to Slow Growth of its Foreign
Workforce: Tharman, AsiaOne, Feb. 17, 2012.
Available here: http://www.asiaone.com/
Business/News/My%2BMoney/Story/A1Story20120217-328562.html
10
A Win-Win Election?The Economist, Banyan
Blog, May 8, 2011. Available here: http://www.
economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/05/singapores_election
11
Singapore Introduced New Entrepreneurial
Job Pass for Foreigners, Pacific Bridge Incorporated, Jan. 5, 2004. Available here: http://www.
pacificbridge.com/news/singapore-introducesnew-entrepreneurial-job-pass-for-foreigners
12
See, eg, Rivkin website, Singapore visa application consultants. Available here: http://www.
rikvin.com/immigration-work-visas/singaporeentrepass-entrepreneur-visa
13
COUNTRY FOCUS: CANADA
Ayelet Shachar, Highly Skilled Immigrants and
Competitive Immigration Regimes, New York
University Law Review, Vol. 81 (2006), p. 104.
Available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=883739
1
2
Id.
Stephen Meurrens, Ministerial Instructions will
be Jason Kenney’s Greatest Legacy, Canadian
Immigration Law Blog, April 28, 2012. Available here: http://www.smeurrens.com/2012/04/
ministerial-instructions-will-be-jason-kenneysgreatest-legacy
3
OECD International Migration Outlook 2011,
p. 270. Available here: http://www.wiso.unihamburg.de/fileadmin/vwl/aussenhandel/internationalewirtschaftsbeziehungen/Hauptstudium/Migration/WiSe2011_12/oecd_2011.pdf
4
Steve La Fleur, Can the Winnipeg Model Save
Detroit? New Geography, May 15, 2011. Available here: http://www.newgeography.com/
content/002238-can-winnipeg-model-savedetroit
5
v | NOT COMING TO AMERICA: WHY THE US IS FALLING BEHIND IN THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT
6
Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Ministerial Instructions web page. Available here:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/study/work-postgrad.asp
Work in Germany, Der Spiegel, Nov. 29,
2011. Accessed May 7, 2012. Available here:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,800441,00.html
Wallace Immen,Tories Launch Bid to Speed
Up Immigration for Entrepreneurs, The Globe
and Mail, April 18, 2012. Available here: http://
www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/ottawa-outlines-plans-forstartup-visa/article2406441
10
7
Sandra Vogel, Working Conditions of Nationals with a Foreign Background: The Case of Germany, Cologne Institute for Economic Research,
July 2011. Accessed May 7, 2011. Available
here: http://www.iwkoeln.de/en/studien/eiroewco-studien/beitrag/84184
11
Der Spiegel, supra.
COUNTRY FOCUS: GERMANY
Peter C. Meilaende, Toward a Theory of Immigration, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, pp. 123-125.
1
Ayelet Shachar, Highly Skilled Immigrants and
Competitive Immigration Regimes, New York
University Law Review, Vol. 81 (2006).
2
3
Id.
Joseph Nasr, German Firms Look to
Skilled Migrants to Fix Labor Shortage, Tapei
Times, Aug. 20, 2011. Available here: http://
www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2011/08/20/2003511170
4
Michael Gardner, Germany: Shortage of
science graduates alarming, University World
News, Dec. 11, 2011. Available here: http://
www.universityworldnews.com/article.
php?story=20111209201100962
5
Immigrants in Germany Falling Behind, Der
Spiegel Online, May 16, 2006. Available
here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,416429,00.html
6
OECD International Migration Outlook 2011,
p. 283. Available here: http://www.wiso.unihamburg.de/fileadmin/vwl/aussenhandel/internationalewirtschaftsbeziehungen/Hauptstudium/Migration/WiSe2011_12/oecd_2011.pdf
7
Sabine Kinkartz, German ‘Blue Card’ to Simplify Immigration, DW, April 28, 2012. Accessed
May 7, 2012. Available here: http://www.dw.de/
dw/article/0,,15915424,00.html
8
9
The Government Must Make it Easier to
COUNTRY FOCUS: CHILE
Cristián Doña and Amanda Levinson,Chile:
Moving Towards a Migration Policy, Migration Policy Institute, Feb. 2004. Available here:
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/
display.cfm?ID=199
1
Nick Leiber, Chile Aims to Attract Foreign
Startups, Bloomberg Businessweek, Oct.
21, 2010. Available here: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/oct2010/
sb20101020_639629.htm
2
3
Id.
Vivek Wadhwa, Chile Wants Your Poor, Your
Huddled Masses, Your Tech Entrepreneurs, Tech
Crunch, Oct. 10, 2009. Available here: http://
techcrunch.com/2009/10/10/chile-wants-yourpoor-your-huddled-masses-your-tech-entrepreneurs
4
5
Id.
Gobierno de Chile, President Pinera: We
cannot be, nor will we be, latecomers to
this new revolution of the information and
knowledge society, Accessed May 7, 2012.
Available here: http://www.gob.cl/english/
featured/2011/05/05/president-pinera-we-cannot-be-nor-will-we-be-latecomers-to-this-newrevolution-of-the-information-an.htm
6
See FAQs on StartUp Chile’s website. Accessed May 7, 2012. Available here: http://
startupchile.org/about/faqs
7
ENDNOTES | vi
Start ups: Come to Chile, collect $40k. Available here: http://matadornetwork.com/life/
start-ups-come-to-chile-collect-40k/; Amit and
Nicolas: VIP in Chile. Available here: http://
startupchile.org/amit-and-nicolas-vip-in-chile/#.
T7haJdzY-5I; Advice to New Startup Chile
Teams. Available here: http://www.nathanlustig.com/2011/05/02/advice-to-new-startupchile-teams
COUNTRY FOCUS: AUSTRALIA
Telephone interview with Brenna Loury, Nov.
3, 2011.
4
8
9
10
Id.
FDI in Chile Reaches US $17,536 Million in
2011, Foreign Investment Committee, March
29, 2012.
11
FDI in Figures, OECD Brief, Jan. 2012. Available here: http://www.oecd.org/ Wall Street
Journal dataoecd/60/43/48462282.pdf
12
COUNTRY FOCUS: NEW ZEALAND
Department of Labour, Immigration New
Zealand website (“INZ website”). Available
here: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/
stream/work/workperm.htm
1
Email correspondence with Immigration Minister Nathan Guy (“Guy Correspondence”), May
15, 2012.
2
INZ website. Available here: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/work/workperm.htm
3
Brian Galligan, et al, Boosting Regional Settlement of Migrants and Refugees in Australia:
Policy Initiatives and Challenges, University
of Melbourne, p. 1-2. http://law.anu.edu.au/
COAST/events/APSA/papers/186.pdf
1
2
Id.
3
8 U.S.C. § 1151(d)(1)(A).
Australian Government Department of Immigration nd Citizenship, Skilled Occupation List
(SOL)—Schedule 1 (online document). Available
here: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/_pdf/solschedule1.pdf
Department of Citizenship and Immigration
website. Available here:http://www.immi.gov.
au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/485
5
6
Galligan, et al, supra.
7
Id.
Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Changes to the General Skilled Migration Program. Available here:
http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilledmigration/pdf/faq-gsmchanges.pdf
8
Australia to cancel 20,000 visa applications,
The Deccan Herald, Feb 8, 2010. Available
here: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/51465/australia-cancel-20000-visa-applications.html
9
10
Id.
INZ website. Available here: http://www.
immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/work/residencefromwork/default.htm
4
INZ website. Available here: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/invest/investment/default.htm
5
6
Guy Correspondence.
7
Guy Correspondence.
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